I’m Still Here, wins the OSCAR for the Best International Film
I’m Still Here (Portuguese: Ainda Estou Aqui ) is a 2024 political biographical drama film directed by Walter Salles from a screenplay by Murilo Hauser and Heitor Lorega, based on Marcelo Rubens Paiva‘s 2015 memoir of the same name. It stars Fernanda Torres and Fernanda Montenegro as Eunice Paiva, a mother and activist coping with the forced disappearance of her husband, the dissident politician Rubens Paiva (Selton Mello), during the military dictatorship in Brazil. Soon after its release in Brazilian theaters on 7 November 2024 by Sony Pictures Releasing International, the film was the target of an unsuccessful boycott by the Brazilian far-right, which denies that the dictatorship was tyrannical.[5][6][7] Grossing $29.9 million on a $1.5 million production budget, it became the highest-grossing Brazilian film since the COVID-19 pandemic.[
In 1970, former congressman Rubens Paiva returns to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, after six years of self-exile following the revocation of his tenure at the outset of the 1964 Brazilian coup d’état. Living in an idyllic house near Leblon beach with his wife Eunice and their five children, Paiva returns to his civil career while continuing to support expatriates without discussing his activities with his family.
Following the kidnapping of the Swiss ambassador by far-left revolutionary movements, the country faces a looming political instability. A military raid takes place in Paiva’s house, resulting in his arrest and disappearance in January 1971. Eunice’s public inquiries on Rubens’ whereabouts results in her arrest and torture for 12 days. Eliana, their teenage daughter, is also imprisoned but is released after 24 hours. After moderate media outrage ignited by family and friends, Eunice is unofficially informed of Rubens’ fate. The Paiva family moves to São Paulo after selling their home, anticipating a new start close to Eunice’s maternal family.
25 years later, in 1996, Eunice receives from the Brazilian state — now once again a democracy — Rubens Paiva’s official death certificate. In 2014, during a family gathering surrounded by her children and grandchildren, the now 85-year-old Eunice lives with advanced Alzheimer’s disease. When a news report about the National Truth Commission addresses Rubens’ case, a distressed Eunice appears to remember her past.
